Joss Whedon on DC Comics, Marvel, and that Wonder Woman Movie

Joss Whedon is currently waiting for his new TV show Dollhouse to get canceled by the FOX network, but until then the creator of Buffy and Firefly took time off from (hopefully) trying to make a successful TV show that doesn’t involve the FOX network next time sat down with Maxim Magazine to talk about comic books, movies about comic book, and shiny doorknobs.

Asked by Maxim why DC Comics was having a hard time turning its superheroes into movies, he said: “Because, with that one big exception (Batman), DC’s heroes are from a different era. They’re from the era when they were creating gods.

“And the thing that made [rival publisher] Marvel Comics extraordinary was that they created people. Their characters didn’t living in mythical cities, they lived in New York. They absolutely were a part of the world. Peter Parker’s character (Spider-Man) was a tortured adolescent.

DC’s characters, like Wonder Woman and Superman and Green Lantern, were all very much removed from humanity. Batman was the only character they had who was so rooted in pain, that had that same gift that the Marvel characters had, which was that gift of humanity that we can relate to.”

You really can’t disagree with that. 9 out of 10 characters from the DCU are such goofy creations. It gets even worst when those DCU characters from the future show up in their flashy overalls and silly names. Frank Miller made the universe respectable again with “The Dark Knight Returns”, but he had to send Green Lantern into space and turn Superman into a tool to do it.

Anyways, here’s what Whedon said about the Wonder Woman movie he was writing, which is now dead or dying or somewhere in-between:

“I have no idea the status of the movie and, honestly, I never did. I was told they were very anxious to make it. I wrote a script. I rewrote the story. And by the time I’d written the second script, they asked me…not to.

“They didn’t tell me to leave, but they showed me the door and how pretty it was. Would I like to touch the knob and maybe make it swing? I was dealing with them through [producer] Joel Silver who couldn’t tell me what they wanted or anything else. I was completely in the dark. So I didn’t know what it was that I wasn’t giving them. I’ve moved on.”

Up next for Joss Whedon? Hopefully get another show off the ground without the tentacles of the FOX network anywhere near it.